Chapter Text
“Wifies is still alive — that’s what you’re trying to tell me? What did you do to Wifies?” Parrot stared at the player in front of him. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing (or maybe he just didn’t want to). If Wifies was alive...
The Director laughed softly, distorted by the harsh voice changer they always used. “Oh, Parrot...” Parrot’s wings fluttered behind him, fluffing up at the condescension laced into the two words. He didn’t like this, not one bit. The Director’s hand moved to grab something, and Parrot was already stepping back before he saw it was a milk bucket.
They raised the bucket to what Parrot assumed was their lips behind their Netherite helmet, downing all of it. Parrot watched as they began to slowly flicker into view. His eyes widened, blood freezing in his veins.
In front of him, stood Wifies. But it wasn’t Wifies. Not really. It couldn’t be. His hair was too brown, his usual grey hoodie hidden by a dark cloak with the same markings as his armor. The Director tilted his head, and Parrot noticed the absence of the feather dangling from his ear. He had given Wifies that feather after Spoke’s chunk ban had been undone. It was just as much a symbol of their friendship as the spyglass Parrot now clutched tightly to his chest.
“You’re not Wifies. Where is he? What have you done with him?”
The Director chuckled, and Parrot flinched. He had Wifies’s laugh. Parrot resisted the urge to throw up. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. Wifies was dead (wasn’t he?), so why was this... this imposter here tormenting Parrot in his best friend’s skin?
“Aren’t I?” The Director stepped forward, his voice low and mocking, in a way Parrot had never heard directed at him before. It felt wrong hearing Wifies talk like this — though Parrot had to reassure himself that this wasn’t Wifies, not really. Maybe the Director had his skin, and his voice, but the Wifies Parrot knew it was good. He wouldn’t torment someone for fun, especially not Parrot. He knew that as a fact. If that wasn’t true... then what even was at this point? Parrot couldn’t think like that, not when he was faced with this. With someone who knew him like they’d grown up together. Someone he didn’t know at all.
“You’re not,” Parrot said, his voice firm. “Wifies wouldn’t have done this. You’re not him.”
The Director smiled, a haunting, mocking smile that made Parrot hate him so much for contorting his best friend’s face in such a way. “Smart bird,” the Director cooed.
“Why do this? Why take on Wifies’s appearance, why dress yourself up like the Director to torment us? What do you gain from this?” Parrot asked. His wings twitched behind him, and he noticed the Director’s gaze catching on them for a split second before their eyes met.
“You interest me, Parrot. Now, come.”
“And why would I do that? You’ve sent assassins to kill me, bro, why would I ever trust you?”
“You were never in any real danger. All those assassins had instructions not to kill you.” The Director leaned closer, close enough for Parrot to notice he was wearing tinted glasses that darkened his eyes, close enough for the heat of the Director’s breath ghost over his face. “I don’t want you dead, after all. But your friends…?” A smirk crawled onto his face as he pulled back.
Parrot froze, the threat lingering in the air between them. “Hey, wait—” But the Director was already turning away, that lazy smirk still playing on his lips. Parrot hesitated, before deciding he didn’t really have a choice. He’d already made BAT suffer enough, and though he wasn’t quite sure he could call any of them his friends anymore, he didn’t want them hurt. If everything worked out for them, Leo would have gotten Jumper and Derapchu out of whatever trap they’d fallen into. Parrot could only pray that they would trust Leo, like he had, and stay away from searching for the Director.
The Director didn’t listen or slow down at Parrot’s frantic cry, so Parrot had to hurry to catch up.
***
It was a prison.
Obsidian walls loomed in front of the two, stretching up to what Parrot assumed was the build limit. A hole was already opened at the base, lined with guards in the same quartz on netherite that the Director donned. Parrot could feel their eyes on him, even though they were hidden by invisibility.
The Director seemed to not even notice them. Parrot supposed it was because he felt like he was better than everyone. That thought made him wonder — why then, did he have so many guards working for him?
The Director led the way through the obsidian tunnel, and Parrot looked back just in time to see the guards blocking it off after them. He really was trapped in here. He gulped, forcing his bubbling fear to stay hidden. The least he could do was not let the Director learn anything about him. That was, after all, what he’d been brought here for.
Parrot had to admit, it was beautiful inside the walls. Snow covered the ground, crunching under his feet as he looked around. Tall snowy mountains loomed from all angles, but the obsidian walls curved in such a way Parrot could see there was more beyond. He saw a glimpse of some cherry leaves atop a hill behind the snowy caps on his left, and something green he decided to be jungle trees to his right.
“Pretty, isn’t it?”
Parrot turned. The Director was watching him, peering through the glasses Wifies most definitely did not wear.
“If it wasn’t a prison, maybe.”
The Director chuckled at that. “Funny bird.”
Parrot scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The Director didn’t deign him a response, donning elytra in sync with his guards before disappearing up into the sky. Parrot wished he could follow. He missed his elytra. Although he had feathered wings coming from his shoulder blades, they weren’t strong enough to do anything but glide. Even still, he had to escape. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to go back to BAT. Although he and Leo had sort of made up, Parrot wasn’t sure whether he trusted them enough anymore.
He looked back up into the baby blue sky. The Director and the invisible guards were nowhere in sight, and Parrot wasn’t sure where they’d gone. But he needed stuff. Tools. Block. Anything and everything to help him escape. If he couldn’t see them, it meant he could do what he wanted. Of course, he wouldn’t throw caution out of the window or anything of the sort, but he could prepare. Would they be expecting it?
Snow crunched beneath his feet as he made his way towards the jungle trees he’d seen earlier. While he walked, his mind ran. How should he escape? Obviously he couldn’t just break through the obsidian— there were too many layers and he knew he’d be caught before he even got halfway. He couldn’t fly away, but he could glide. Maybe from atop a mountain he could have enough height to make it far enough up the wall they couldn’t catch him. For that, he needed blocks. Some simple tools wouldn’t hurt either, especially if he did make it out.
Parrot crested a small hill to check his progress. The jungle was so close, close enough that he could just glide. His wings fluttered behind him, catching the tiniest bit in a frosty breeze. He jumped and let his wings spread.
Flying (or in this case gliding) was really spectacular. The rush of cool wind past his ears made everything else muted enough for him to lose himself in the feeling of flying again. His muscles had cramped after spending so long walking to this prison without stretching his wings, and Parrot already felt an ache settling in. He waited until all of the white snow had faded into grass before he tucked his wings and landed softly.
A jungle tree was only a few blocks away, and Parrot quickly approached it to chop it down. After several minutes, he had a full set of stone tools and nearly a stack of spare logs. Plus, most importantly, a plan.
Parrot began to trudge back towards the mountains. There was still no sign of anyone else, but he felt like he was being watched. He supposed it was paranoia. Either way, it didn’t matter. Parrot was going to escape.
He crafted all of his jungle logs into planks when he reached the base of the mountain. It was tall, definitely going at least halfway up the obsidian walls of this prison. And steep. Steep enough Parrot thought about getting more wood as he had to use some of it to tower up to the top. His heart nearly shattered his chest with every thump, his wings flaring out behind to steady him at the slightest noise. It wasn’t long before he reached the top, where he crafted slabs to bridge over. He was still a few hundred blocks from the wall and knew that his wings wouldn’t be able to maintain his height for that long.
Parrot placed the first slab, careful to stay on the thin bridge as he crouched to the edge. Over and over again, he inched closer and closer to the wall. He had nearly placed a stack of slabs when the faintest of air whistling reached his ears. Twisting towards the sound, Parrot spotted three of the guards in quartz trimmed netherite diving towards him, elytra spread out wide. He wasn’t nearly close enough to the wall to glide over, but the guards were so close now Parrot didn’t know what to do. In the end, it didn’t matter. The guards swooped down around him, and he squawked as he felt the shattering glass of a potion hit his side. His wings flared out, and before he knew it he was falling. Slowly.
Parrot presumed the potion was of slow falling with the way he felt as light as air. He twisted in the air until his wings caught a draft, carrying him back towards the base of the mountain. As he landed, the potion wore off, making all his limbs feel heavy and sluggish.
Where had the guards come from? Had they been watching him the entire time with their armor off? Had they built some crazy contraption with redstone he couldn’t understand? Parrot could only guess, and even still his guesses didn’t seem too plausible. It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense.
Parrot looked back up at his bridge. Already, the guards had vanished. He wasn’t stupid enough to assume he could make it any further if he tried again. It was obvious now. The Director was always one step ahead, even here. Especially here. He should have known.
***
After building a small house up on a hill in the jungle, Parrot flopped onto his bed, wings folded behind him. It was uncomfortable, as usually he had to take care to make sure his position didn’t add stress to his wings, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was tired, so tired. Yet he knew he had to escape. (But how?)
The overworld was being watched. He knew that. But the Nether? Surely the guards couldn’t be watching everything… even though Parrot knew they probably were. There had to be some weakness to this prison. He might as well try the Nether. Worst case it would rule out that method of escape. Besides, what other option did he have?
He could try the Nether roof. It was too obvious a solution to ever work, Parrot knew that much. But he also knew he needed to do something.
It was simple. He would dig far down, block off the path behind him, and build a Nether portal secluded from any tunnel. It wouldn’t hold off the guards forever, but it would be enough. It had to be. Then he would use the gold he’d gathered on his mine down plus whatever he could scavenge in the Nether to trade for pearls. Parrot wasn’t sure how much gold he would need, however he didn’t want to spend forever mining gold to get pearls on the first trade. Ugh, decisions, decisions…
His bed creaked as he stood up, wings stretching out behind him as they worked out their cramps. It had been forever since he had had enough time to properly preen — he kept brushing it off as he hardly used his wings. Wifies used to, but he hadn’t seen his friend in… gosh, how long had it been? The Director didn’t count. Parrot wouldn’t consider that poorly made replica anything close to his best friend. So the Mafia. With Dean and Ash, before he lived with BAT, before Nufuli…
Parrot shook his thoughts away. He couldn’t be dwelling on the past, not when he still had a life to live. Or he would, as soon as he escaped this prison. He had tools, and even if they were just stone ones, he could mine for iron or maybe even diamonds. He had to do something. So he did.
The mine was dug blocks away from the foot of the hill. Parrot didn’t bother to hide it. So what, he was mining down. What else could he be expected to do in this situation? If they were watching him, there was nothing he could do. Only a few blocks in, and his pickaxe slowed, chopping away at the hard, metallic sheen of raw iron ore. Parrot smiled, finishing off the vein. Eight raw iron popped into his inventory. He grabbed stone from his hotbar, placing a crafting table to construct a furnace. The iron was slid into the top opening and coal into the bottom, the forge flaring to life.
It was a few hours later before Parrot stood in front of a shimmery purple portal, a half broken iron pickaxe in hand and a golden helmet atop his messy hair. Walking into the portal, he ignored the way his vision swam as his surroundings disappeared and reappeared.
Slowly, the red-brown of netherrack morphed from color into form, shaping the walls of the small cave Parrot found himself in. He stepped from the portal, turning to make sure there wasn’t any obvious path to more open terrain. None appeared, though a tunnel continued to his left, sloping down and out of sight. He sighed, resigned to the fact that he’d be stuck in an enclosed space for even longer. Feathers rustled behind him as his wings protested at that thought, and Parrot stretched them out as far as he could before retracting them back to their place at his back.
The Nether was easily ten or twenty degrees hotter than the overworld’s highs, and Partot, already sensitive to dramatic changes in temperatures, hated it. It felt as if his skin was burning off, even though he knew the temperature was nothing harmful as long as he didn’t stay for days on end. He shouldn’t have to worry about that, not right now. It was going to be a quick in and out, just for pearls.
That’s what Parrot told himself. As easy as the mission was in theory, piglins’ pearl trades were randomized, and it was very likely he’d spend hours in here waiting. Even longer depending on how fast it would be to find a crimson forest with enough space to get piglin spawns.
Parrot hefted his pickaxe, beginning to tunnel straight from his portal.
After many, many blocks and nearly his entire pickaxe durability expended, he broke out into air. It was still in the nether wastes, but over on his left was the faintest brighter red that signified a crimson forest.
The black walls of obsidian faded into view as Parrot drew nearer to the crimson. He wasn’t surprised. This prison was like a black hole, containing anything and everything that entered. It seemed bulletproof, though nothing was perfect in this world. Parrot knew that much. No matter how well thought out a plan was, or how many iterations a prison had gone through, or how many people were brought to help— everything had a weakness. A flaw. Some tiny error overlooked or unnoticed, because everything ‘perfect’ in this world was manmade. And humans made mistakes.
Parrot just needed the Director to make a big enough one to provide him an out.
His wings stretched wide behind him as they caught the air, gliding him down to land next to a towering crimson fungus. He steadied himself with a hand on the rough stem, stone axe in hand as he scanned for piglins. The sound of hunting draws his attention to the victory dance of a horde of piglins just barely visible further into the forest. Parrot switches to hold his pickaxe, walking nearer to dig a trading hole beside the tribe. As he tossed his gold into the pit, the piglins’ heads snapped towards him, and they scrambled to barter the gold. Parrot made sure all of the pigs were in the hole before he tossed the rest of his gold in.
Then he rose, scaling a nearby tree to perch on top. Piglins took a bit to trade, and his wings needed a break after being cooped up in that tunnel for so long. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to keep a lookout. He was never too sure he wasn’t being watched. Although there was no sign of quartz-trimmed netherite, he still had the creeping feeling that eyes were on him.
Feathers ruffled as his wings stretched out behind him. Ooh, he definitely needed to preen. His right wing swung in front of him, and he cringed at the sight of all the muck. Parrot reached out, pushing away the dust and grime covering his plumage. This was going to take a while.
After hours and hours of waiting, the piglins below his tree finished trading. Parrot was done preening at this point and was relaxing while peering over the edge of the tree. His wings played aimlessly in the air as his arms dangled downward. When he saw the piglins pause in their rapid bartering, he rose, leaping off the tree to land softly on the ground beside them. Items littered the ground around him, and Parrot waded through them to scoop up any ender pearls or obsidian dropped. Obsidian wasn’t necessary for his current escape plan, but it was useful for future endeavors. If he somehow failed. He couldn’t. He needed to escape.
He thanked the piglins before turning around and running back towards his tunnel. Quick access to the Nether roof was necessary, and mining a staircase up had mining for ancient debris as a cover. Plus, it would get the ceaseless feeling of being watched to go away. His wings could suffer for a little longer if it meant he could escape.
The netherrack in front of him broke as Parrot swung his iron pickaxe. Slowly, an upwards staircase began to form around him as he dug towards the bedrock roof.
It wasn’t long before he broke through to the grey of bedrock. He mined more netherrack to expose the jagged underside of the Nether roof. He needed a spot where the bedrock was thin enough for his pearl to clip through, and it wasn’t long before such a situation appeared.
Parrot threw the pearl through the corner, grunting as he just barely clipped through the bedrock. Quickly, he pulled himself up and out onto the roof. The matte-grey staticky stone beneath his feet stretched out in a wide disk until the same high walls of onyx rose. It was now or never.
Another ender pearl whizzed through the air, landing him nearly halfway up the obsidian. His hands scrambled for blocks, wings flaring behind him for balance. A stack of netherrack found its way into his hands, and Parrot frantically towered up.
The netherrack pillar rose beneath him in frenzied bursts, each block placed faster than the last as the top of the obsidian wall crept closer into view. Parrot’s heartbeat was loud in his ears, seeming to get faster and faster with every beat until he could hardly tell the beats from the rhythmic placement of blocks under his feet. He refused to look down. Every second mattered now. If he could just reach the top, if he could just pull himself over the edge, he could glide out and away into the large expanse that was the Nether roof. He could distract them long enough. He could be free.
The sound of wings whistling through air drew his focus.
Parrot glanced over his shoulder just long enough to see them. Four guards in quartz-trimmed netherite armor were barely visible upon the blackened sky above him. Their rockets exploded behind them as they propelled forward, towards him. But they weren’t flying quickly, like their only job was to knock him off. No, they were gliding leisurely, watching him instead of charging. They didn’t seem like they wanted him dead. Why not? So the Director could continue watching him because he was intriguing? It was clear their objective was simply to stop him from leaving. Parrot wouldn’t let that happen. Not today. Not when he was so close. He forced himself to keep building up, up, up.
The wall's lip was less than a stack of blocks above him now — he was sure of it, even if he didn’t have enough time to count the distance exactly. His hands trembled as he grabbed a new stack of netherrack, placing another block beneath his feet, then another. The guards accelerated, the air whizzing above their elytra as if it was a pair of wings. Parrot knew the sound all too well. He glanced behind him. One of the guards had landed on the wall to his left, and another on his right. The other two were still dawdling behind him, taunting him. They knew he couldn’t make it, like they had planned for this exact scenario long before he had ever thrown that first ender pearl through the bedrock.
Parrot reached upward for the final stretch, his fingers brushing the cold edge of the obsidian. One more block. Maybe two. He was there. Relief surged through him for the briefest instant before he was shoved to the side. It was controlled, with enough force to knock Parrot off his tower with a squawk but not enough to send him crashing into the wall. His wings snapped open on instinct as he clawed desperately at the smooth obsidian, but there was nothing to hold onto.
It was a second before his mind caught up to his body, and he realized he was falling. Down, down, down— what was he doing? Parrot twisted, his feathers finally catching the wind rushing past him enough to give him lift. Or at least enough to make his fall into a glide, graceful but still humiliating.
His feet hit the ground and he stumbled, going faster than he would have liked to on impact. Instantly, the guards were around him. Boots on bedrock echoed around the plane, and Parrot was trapped. There was really nothing he could do— a 1v4 where he was outmatched in both gear and most likely skill was a lost cause, and there was no chance he could ever outrun them on land or in air. As they had a seemingly infinite amount of invisibility potions, Parrot assumed they were also stacked on others, like speed and strength. Plus, his wings were nothing compared to a set of elytra and fireworks.
The guard to his left stepped forward, placing obsidian into the familiar outline of a Nether portal. They lit it with a fire charge, and the portal blazed to life. The soft buzz reached Parrot’s ears as he watched the purple mist shimmer in front of him. This was it.
He couldn’t believe that they had known. Sure, maybe he was obvious with it, but they’d targeted him instantly, flying down from the sky as if they had been there all along. The portal in front of him now hadn’t existed before when he had first popped through the bedrock. How had the Director known?
And surely it was the Director who was stalking him, making sure every escape attempt failed, not someone else. The guards wouldn’t act if they didn’t have orders, and the Director didn’t seem like one who would like to be bossed around.
Though, to be fair, it wasn’t like he knew a ton about the Director in the first place. Parrot didn’t even know what he looked like until earlier in the snow outside his cabin.
Parrot stumbled as a heavy hand hit his back. The guards were walking around him, moving as a group towards the portal. He forced his feet to move, not wanting to be shoved again. Armor clinked and shifted as the invisible players guided him, as if escorting a quite rabid animal. Parrot hated it.
But before he knew it, he was face to face with the familiar purple shimmer. A guard stepped in first as Parrot hung back. He wasn’t expecting them to let him escape. Not now. Not anymore. And as he did expect, one of the guards gestured for him to enter. So he did.
He held his breath as the world warped around him, spinning in magenta circles for the four seconds that seemed to last forever. Finally, his vision blurred then cleared back into the familiar cave he entered from. Surprisingly (or maybe it shouldn’t be surprising anymore) the guard was gone. Parrot turned, wings fluffing in anticipation, yet the portal stayed empty behind him. He waited a second more. No guards. Did they have another portal?
It wasn’t like this was the only portal in this prison. Probably far from it. But somehow the portal on the roof had landed him in the exact same spot his portal in the cave had.
Everything here was so confusing.
Parrot sighed. His escape attempt was too obvious. Sure. He expected that. Kind of. It was hard to know what to expect. Wifies had always been better at that sort of thing.
He really missed Wifies. Being stuck, alone, for so long made the memories of friendship and connection resurface. He missed having someone to talk to, someone to laugh with, someone who would always watch his back. Through endless perils, through life-or-death situations. Wifies had been there for him. And now he wasn’t. Parrot wasn’t sure that he would ever recover. Not when the Director was somehow a skin walker of his best friend. They looked so alike. Parrot had even though, for a horrifying split second, that it might have been Wifies behind everything. But Wifies wouldn’t do this. Not the friend he’d known. So whoever this was, couldn’t be his friend. Couldn’t be anything more than a copycat.
The groaning of a zombie drew his attention back to his surroundings. He was still in the cave. The lava lake behind his portal spread extensively, illuminating the furthest parts of the cave where he could barely make out the difference between deepslate and tuff. It wasn’t safe here. Where was it ever?
Parrot slashed at the undead monster as it loomed in front of him, his wings providing the smallest lift to help him crit. Once it poofed into grey smoke in front of him, he looked around, spotting the familiar tunnel that he’d dug down. Sheathing his sword and checking around once more for any sign of the Director or his guards, Parrot began to make his way back up the cave.
A glitter of red caught his eye as he neared his stripmine down, and he paused. Redstone. He wasn’t the greatest with it, although he did build an orbital cannon at one point, so he definitely couldn’t construct some intricate machine to help him escape. However...
Many blocks could be triggered by a redstone pulse. Repeaters, droppers, dispensers, pistons. But only one of them was of use. The guards seemed to come from everywhere whenever he tried to escape— so what if he laid a trap? No, not a trap. More like a distraction. He could feign an escape in one direction and have a stasis chamber ready to teleport him across the prison to his real plan. Surely that had to work. Parrot wasn’t sure what he could do if it didn’t.
The deepslate crumbled away to leave the powdery crimson dust that was his redstone. Parrot pocketed it, thinking that he’d make a clock in case that would throw the guards off his trail. Probably not. Worth a shot. Anything and everything was worth it now.
Deepslate turned to stone, then to dirt as Parrot made his way up out of the mine. He’d gathered all the ores lining his tunnel previously, only leaving the far away ones in the large cave. It didn’t seem like anyone else was going to be mining them any time soon. Parrot was pretty sure he was the only person within thousands if not millions of blocks. The Director and his minions didn’t count. They were never around half of the time.
What did he need for the stasis chamber? Quartz he had from trading with piglins earlier and redstone from the cave. He had one pearl left, too, which was great. Everything else was rather easy. Wood and glass for a daylight detector, wood for the trapdoor, soul sand for the bible elevator. He could do this.
Green filled his vision as he emerged from his mine. He was right next to the hill he’d built his house on. That was perfect. He could easily hide the machine inside of the wooden walls in a way unnoticeable until scoured thoroughly. Even still, Parrot would build the machine quick before heading out to feign an escape, meaning anyone would have only a few hours to suspect him and come investigate.
He still had wood due to his demolition of the giant jungle tree earlier. In fact, he was pretty sure there were a few pieces of glass hidden within his chests. After all, he’d built windows on his house earlier, and there was no way he’d calculated the exact amount necessary for his windows. Parrot never cared enough to stress the importance of such a small thing like counting blocks of glass. Something somewhere always got destroyed, or he got found out and needed to move. It was always better to have more supplies than less, and this wasn’t the first time Parrot felt glad about his laziness, making his way back up the hill to his small shack. The door didn’t even lock, he realized, as he turned the knob and pushed it open with no resistance. He should fix that. He would, if he ever planned to stay longer than tonight. A lockable door was only protection if you stayed in your house needing to be defended.
It was a few hours of doing practically nothing besides wasting time before Parrot could put his plan into action. After all, daylight detectors only triggered when the sun went down, and there was no use to being found out hours beforehand because he had been too cocky with his setup. But now it was time.
Earlier, he had found that he did indeed have enough glass to craft the detector and leave some leftover. It was tough to find a spot good enough to hide it, but a patch of bushes outside his house given that he was in a jungle biome was as inconspicuous as he could get it. The next step was the redstone trail underground to his bubble elevator. He’d been out fishing too to grab some kelp. Kelp made the water flow better, and saved time overall in the building process. But now the hole was clear, save for the faint bubbles drifting to the surface due to the soul sand underneath.
Parrot took a deep breath, rechecked his redstone and the trapdoor which all seemed perfect, and threw his pearl into the water. The small cyan object hurtled downward, but the force of the rising bubbles sent it floating back up, until it was bobbing by his feet, just missing the upright trapdoor. It was now or never.
He swung the door open, shutting it behind him as he hurried down the hill. He tried not to seem too excited, or too determined, but he always found some sort of adrenaline came from escaping, or at least planning escapes. After all, he was very slippery, or so he’d been told.
The walk across the prison was mostly uneventful. He killed a few mobs for food, but the rest of the journey was silent, broken only by his footsteps or the occasional ambient background static. It was also the first time he didn’t feel watched, and Parrot wasn’t sure how to feel. If the relentless eyes upon him stopped now of all times, did that mean he was safe? Or that his plan was so inevitably failing that the Director didn’t even bother to watch? He felt himself relax anyway, feeling the pressure of having to perform vanish as it was replaced by determination. Sure, maybe his last attempts hadn’t worked, and maybe the same would befall this one, but he was determined to get out. It was all he cared about, the only thoughts filling his mind all the hours of the day.
After all, who was he if unable to be free? He was rather like a bird in that aspect, uncontent to sit in a gilded cage all day, because that was really all this was. This prison. This inescapable pit that attempted to suck all life and happiness and hope from him. But Parrot wasn’t easily swayed, least of all from being trapped. Living was never easy, especially when his ventures often made enemies due to his unstoppable urge to help others. He never hated himself for it. In fact, it made times like these all the more bearable because he knew he had the abilities to escape. He’d done it before, with Spoke and Wemmbu and the Mafia, and even with the assassins the Director sent after him. It wasn’t like he couldn’t escape.
Soon, the wall loomed before him once more, and Parrot felt the returning feeling of being watched. He guessed that that would probably happen. After all, what kind of prison would this be if it didn’t watch its prisoners as they tried to escape? Surely not a very good one, and the Director didn’t seem like someone to avoid such obvious procedures.
Yet still— there was no sign of anyone but himself, and Parrot made sure to look around carefully in an attempt to figure out where the guards could possibly come from this time. After all, everything was clear. There should have been no way for them to watch him without him able to see them back, yet somehow there was because it was happening right now.
Somehow blocks made their way into his hands, and he started to tower up. His wings fluttered behind him for balance as he continued to build upwards, catching and twisting open in the light breeze. His tower grew taller and taller, the random assortment of blocks he’d gathered making their appearance in a colorful albeit random pattern beneath him, and Parrot wondered for a split second if he would be allowed to escape only for his pearl to drag him back.
But at last, as he paused to estimate the distance left to climb — a half stack? or maybe a bit more — the sharp whistling of elytra met his ears. Eyes darting immediately to his clock in order to survey the position of the sun, Parrot spotted the guards flying directly at him, skimming the ground at such a low height that the sun would have been directly behind them had it been visible. His clock said nighttime was nearly upon them, as the face of the small object was almost fully dark with only a small glimmer of sky-blue. Only a few more minutes. He could do this.
Forcing a panic into his movements that felt almost natural even though he knew being caught here wasn’t the end, his hands shook as he continued upwards. One block. Then another. The guards were maybe the next chunk over, still hovering barely above the ground. Another block. Maybe twenty more to go. The whistling was louder now, puncturing through his ears and sending shivers down his entire body. Fifteen blocks. Then ten. Nine. Rockets exploded around him as the guards finally reached his level, and Parrot knew he wouldn’t make it out. They were too close, too tight, too fast. But he was smarter.
Ducking off his tower into a dive downward, he narrowly dodged the hands aiming to catch or restrain him. He fumbled with the clock, and it slipped, his hands knocking it just barely out of reach. As they fell, he just barely caught the sight of the fully blackened screen. It was time.
The world materialized around him, and Parrot coughed through the nausea of finding himself with both feet on the ground again. He pushed the trapdoor above him up, pulling himself out of the cramped bubble elevator, gasping for air. Instantly, his wings dumped their gathered water all over him and he was coughing all over again. It was then that Parrot realized he wasn’t alone.
Scrambling to sit up, he nearly fell straight back into the water. His eyes rose, following the ubiquitous white trims snaking up the dark armor until he met a very, very familiar face watching him.
“Did you think that was clever?” The Director asked. Parrot gulped, suddenly feeling very awkward with his soaked clothes and wings dripping water, and the Director continued. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice? How stupid do you think I am, Parrot?”
Parrot bit back his insulting retort of “what do you think?”, his mind racing. Why was he being confronted now out of all times? This was his third escape attempt, which surely lent a lot of time for a meeting in between if there was a need for it before now. So why?
“I had to try,” he finally settled with saying. If the Director had really been watching him for as long as he’d said, Parrot would’ve thought it obvious. He was never one to accept his fate. “If I interest you, doesn’t that mean you want to watch me be me?”
“You’re distracting my guards.”
“Well, that’s hardly my problem—” But the Director cut him off by raising a hand, then gesturing for him to follow. Parrot complied, rising and falling into step a block behind. He was no match if the Director decided to attack him, and he’d really rather not risk that for his escape attempt to be barred by guards. And surely, surely nothing could be worse than his current situation?
***
Nope. There were definitely worse situations than being able to run free in a very large prison. One of which would be a small cell with hardly enough room to spread his wings. And that was the predicament Parrot found himself in.
He’d followed the Director to the center of the prison, up the giant spire he’d previously avoided as there were always infinite guards standing watch around it and through the doors at the top. He had been utterly disappointed to find that inside only consisted of a spiral staircase downward, but he followed anyway. It had only led to an insanely complex redstone door and wall of buttons, protected in part by the hum and weakness in his bones he knew to be ming fatigue. The only way through was a complicated passcode that the Director put in so fast that Parrot couldn’t remember which buttons were pressed. The giant door had shifted open to reveal a blinding white passage that the Director had led him down. Parrot was too busy staring around to notice the approach of guards, who shoved him into his cell before he could react.
And here he was.
Parrot wished he hadn’t been so stupid to let the guards shove him around. He should have never let his guard down around anyone, let alone the Director or his minions. He wished he never tried his last escape attempt— which was plain stupid because, even now, he was thinking up ways to escape. It wasn’t who he was to sit still and let himself be bossed around. He just wished he hadn’t been caught, mad at himself for not fighting harder or thinking up a better escape, but everything always seemed dumber in hindsight.
But most of all, he wished he had a friend. Everything was always better when he’d had Wifies by his side, and seeing this horrid half-replica of his best friend did nothing to help his thoughts. They’d gotten so far, done so many things together. They’d escaped Proton together, for crying out loud! They’d been unstoppable. Alone, Parrot couldn’t even escape a prison without a roof.
He needed another person, he was going insane without having someone to talk to. Even with BAT, he’d joked around with Jumper and discussed plans with Leo, even if they’d never been super close. It wasn’t anything like having his best friend back, but he’d been surviving, and that was all he could hope for. It was never easy to lose a friend. Even less so when his captor decided to shapeshift into him.
Parrot wasn’t even sure how that was possible. Wifies had been Wifies. No twin or family members had ever been mentioned, and surely Wifies would’ve trusted him enough to tell him. This… the Director was so different from his friend in practically every way except appearance. But even still— the Director had warmer hair and glasses that Parrot was sure Wifies had never touched in his life. He liked his friend’s dark, almost purplish hair. It made him easier to spot, and Parrot had to admit that the cooler color suited Wifies better than whatever the Director had going on. There was also the absence of the feather Parrot had given to Wifies after he’d been rescued from the chunk ban, so the Director couldn’t be some twisted version of his friend because every pixel of Parrot’s body and soul told him that Wifies would never let the feather go.
Parrot hadn’t let the spyglass go either, and that hadn’t even been given to him. He’d been the one to give it to Wifies, the one who said that the small piece of copper meant anything. But it did. And surely it would have to Wifies too.
So who could the Director be, and why did he look so much like Parrot’s friend?
Did that even matter? Parrot was going to get out of here anyway, so did he even want to spend more time with his captor? He hated his answer was yes.